Sentence Examples

Such a curve may be regarded geometrically as actually described, or kinematically as in the course of description by the motion of a point; in the former point of view, it is the locus of all the points which satisfy a given condition; in the latter, it is the locus of a point moving subject to a given condition.

Thus the most simple and earliest known curve, the circle, is the locus of all the points at a given distance from a fixed centre, or else the locus of a point moving so as to be always at a given distance from a fixed centre.

A conic section (or as we now say a " conic ") is the locus of a point such that its distance from a given point, the focus, is in a given ratio to its (perpendicular) distance from a given line, the directrix; or it is the locus of a point which moves so as always to satisfy the foregoing condition.

Similarly any other property might be used as a definition; an ellipse is the locus of a point such that the sum of its distances from two fixed points (the foci) is constant, &c., &c.

In a machine of any kind, each point describes a curve; a simple but important instance is the " three-bar curve," or locus of a point in or rigidly connected with a bar pivoted on to two other bars which rotate about fixed centres respectively.